


The Inner Light

by Persiflage



Series: Star Trek Fusion [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Children, Domestic Fluff, Episode Remix, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Genderswapped characters, Happy families, Inspired by Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kissing, Music, Natural Disasters, POV Character of Color, PoV Michael Burnham, Pre-Canon, Same-Sex Marriage, Shenzhou Era, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-11 21:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19935025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: A pre-canonDiscoera re-write of theNext GenerationepisodeThe Inner Light.





	The Inner Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nomisunrider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomisunrider/gifts), [Radiolaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/gifts).



> I watched TNG's _The Inner Light_ and wondered what it would look like with Michael in Picard's role, and Philippa in Riker's role, and then just basically sprinted with the idea. (I cannot say I ran with it, because it moved too fast!)
> 
> I've gender swapped two characters - Kamin (the 'character' Picard becomes) and Batai, Kamin's closest friend.

_First Officer’s log, star date 1022.1. Following a magnetic wave survey of the Parvenium Sector, we've detected an object which we cannot immediately identify._

“Magnify,” calls Captain Georgiou from her chair as they all stare at the strange object on the view screen. “Mister Connor?” 

“It appears to be a probe of some kind, Captain, but there is no Starfleet record of this shape or design.” 

“Is it scanning us?” asks Georgiou.

“No, Captain,” Michael answers from her station, “but it has assumed a relative position and is holding course with us. The probe is composed of paricium and talgonite, a ceramic alloy.”

“Not a very sophisticated technology,” observes Saru.

“Captain, I am detecting a low-level nucleonic beam coming from the probe,” Michael adds. 

“Shields up. Stand by phasers,” Georgiou orders Connor immediately. 

“The beam is scanning the shield's perimeter, Captain,” Michael informs her. “The probe is emitting an unusual particle stream.”

“Captain, the beam is penetrating our shields,” Saru says, and Michael can hear his anxiety at this development.

“Captain, perhaps we should increase power to –” Michael’s words cut off as she feels her entire body twitch vigorously, and she’s vaguely aware of Georgiou turning to look at her in alarm, then getting to her feet and beginning to move towards her. Her expression seems more than usually concerned, Michael thinks, then she realises that she’s falling sideways entirely without conscious volition.

The Captain springs to her side and manages to interpose her body between Michael’s and the floor, and Michael can barely hear her speaking, her voice seems to be coming from far away as she says, “Michael? Michael? I’ve got you, it’s all –”

Michael’s eyes close, and when they open again, the Captain is still looking at her, but she’s done her hair differently, and she’s dressed differently. After a moment Michael realises she also looks about ten years younger, nearer to her own age.

“Philippa?” she says doubtfully.

“Well, finally. How are you feeling? Kamin, can you answer me?”

“What is this place, Philippa?” Michael asks, noting that they’re in a room that resembles someone’s sitting room. 

“I’m not Philippa,” the woman says. “You must still be feverish. I’m Eline.”

“Michael to _Shenzhou_.” Michael struggles to sit upright in the unfamiliar chair.

“Kamin, please don't get up yet. You're still not well.” The woman calling herself Eline cups Michael’s cheek, then lightly presses the back of her hand to her forehead.

“I asked you, what is this place?” Michael asks insistently.

The woman who is not Philippa frowns. “This is your home, of course.”

“Am I a prisoner here?” Michael asks.

“Please, love, you've had a high fever for three days. You mustn't push yourself too quickly.” Michael gets to her feet and moves towards the only door she can see. “Kamin? You really shouldn't go outside.”

Michael ignores this ‘Eline’ who looks so like her Captain but clearly isn’t her, and touches the button near the door, which opens, allowing her to go outside. She finds herself in a large, sunlit courtyard, and ignoring Eline, she moves away from the dwelling and down a street towards a larger group of buildings which she assumes is the town centre.

She reaches a large square, and from the shade of a colonnade, Michael finds herself watching a tree-planting ceremony.

A woman about a decade older than Michael speaks as the crowd around the tree’s container applauds, “Thank you. This sapling is planted as an affirmation of life in defiance of the drought and with expectations of long life. Whatever comes, we will keep it alive as a symbol of our survival.” She looks around at the townsfolk, then spots Michael. 

“Kamin! You're back on your feet! How do you feel, my friend?”

“Are you in charge here?” Michael asks.

“In charge?” repeats the woman, obviously puzzled by her question.

“I want to be returned to my ship immediately,” Michael tells her, which earns her a frown of confusion. 

“What ship is that?”

“Please,” Michael says, beginning to feel almost panicky by now. “Just tell me, what is this place? Where am I?”

“The fever,” the woman says. “It's taken your memory.”

Her obvious acceptance of this idea, combined with her calm manner helps Michael to find her Vulcan controls again, and she says, more quietly, “That must be it. Perhaps you can help me?”

“Anything, my friend.”

“My name is Kamin?” she asks.

“Yes.”

She nods. “And you are?”

That clearly confuses her for a moment. “Batai. Council leader Batai.”

“Batai. And you say I've been ill?”

“For more than a week,” she agrees. “Eline should've put you in the hospital, but she insisted on caring for you herself.”

“Eline?” Michael asks.

“Your wife,” Batai says. “If you don't remember that, maybe it's safer not to go home.” She raises her eyebrows, and Michael gives her a sheepish look.

“And what is this place?” she asks.

“Perhaps you should see the doctor after all,” Batai says, curling her hand around Michael’s upper arm.

“No, please,” she says, trying to sound reassuring. “I'm sure it will all come back to me.”

“This is the community of Ressik. Northern province.”

“What planet?” Michael asks.

“Let me take you back home,” says Batai, more insistently now. 

“No, really, I'm quite all right. Just answer me, please. What planet?” 

“This is the planet Kataan.”

“Kataan,” Michael repeats. “Not a Federation planet.” After a moment she adds, “I think I'll just take a walk.”

“But you've been ill for a week,” exclaims Batai.

“Then the exercise will do me good,” Michael says firmly. “I'll try to re-acquaint myself with the surroundings.”

Batai still looks concerned as she walks away from her, and away from the town. She can see hills beyond the town, so she heads for them, climbing easily. The ambient temperature is higher than Earth’s average temperature and the sun feels hotter, reminding her of Vulcan. Once up in the hills she turns around and looks back down on the white-walled town which is perched on an outcrop above a very small river that she can easily see from the width of its bed should be much larger.

When she finds her way back to the dwelling where ‘Eline’ lives, it’s late and she’s dusty, hungry, and exhausted. Then the door opens, the woman who looks like a younger version of her Captain staring at her with a combination of relief and concern – a look she has seen on her Captain’s face on occasion when she’s come back from doing something which Philippa considered dangerous.

“Thank goodness,” Eline says. “I've had people out trying to find you everywhere. Why did you worry us like that? Are you hungry?” 

“Hungry and thirsty,” Michael replies, “And exhausted. I suppose that proves this is not a dream, doesn't it?” 

“You think this, your life, is a dream?”

“This is not my life,” Michael says firmly. “I know that much.”

“I've kept something hot for you.” Eline brings her a bowl of soup as she sits down in the chair she’d occupied earlier. “Where did you go?” 

“I walked. For hours.”

“And you're just out of bed.” Beneath the concern, there’s a fondness in this Eline’s tone that also echoes Captain Georgiou.

“This is delicious,” she says, trying not to eat the soup too eagerly.

Eline chuckles. “You always say that – every time I make it.”

“Would you try to answer some questions for me, no matter how strange they may seem to you?” Michael asks her.

“Of course.”

“Are there other planets in this star system? Do you visit other systems?” Eline gives her a baffled look. “All right. Do you have a communication system here? How do you send messages to other communities, to other places?”

“The usual way, by voice-transit conductor. Do you want to send a message?”

“Yes. When can that be arranged?”

“Tomorrow. Don't you want to ask about us?”

“Of course,” Michael says, although she already knows the most important answer from Batai. “Anything you can tell me will be helpful. We're, um, married?”

“Three years ago,” Eline says. “The happiest day of my life was the day that we got married.”

Michael quashes the yearning sensation she immediately feels on hearing this. She cannot begin to imagine the joyous privilege of being married to Philippa for three years. “And what do I do here in Ressik?” she asks. 

“You're the best iron weaver in the community. At least I think so. You prefer playing the flute, of course.” There’s a humorous tone to her last remark that she cannot parse.

“The flute?” Michael asks somewhat blankly as she knows she doesn’t possess any musical talent.

“Yes.” Eline goes to the corner of the room, and from a drawer she fetches a penny whistle decorated with a tassel, which she gives to Michael.

“And when did I learn to play it?”

“I'm afraid you never did, dear, but you keep trying.” Eline is smiling at her as Michael takes the flute and gives it a trial blow.

“I see what you mean,” she agrees, smiling. “Well, thank you for the soup. Thank you for your help. Tomorrow, will you help me send a message?”

“Of course,” Eline says. “Will you come to bed?”

“Oh, I'll sleep here,” Michael says awkwardly. 

“Kamin, please come with me.”

“I've been sick. I'll be tossing and turning. It wouldn't be fair to you.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Eline says. As she leans towards Michael, trying to pull her up from the chair, she sees a pendant on a chain around Eline’s neck. The pendant is precisely the same design as the probe that the _Shenzhou_ encountered.

“Where did you get this?” Michael asks urgently.

“Kamin, this is the first gift you ever gave me,” Eline says.

Michael nods, wishing she could make sense of her situation. She is, however, too tired to think clearly, so she submits to Eline’s insistence that she accompany her to sleep in their bed. 

In their bedroom Michael slowly gets undressed, removing her belted tunic and her pants, then slipping off her bra and panties. Eline undresses too, but Michael cannot look at her, feeling too embarrassed for the moment at the prospect of seeing a naked woman who looks almost identical to her Captain. 

She slips under the covers and positions herself on her side. Eline climbs into bed from the other side and Michael senses her moving to the centre of the bed. 

“Come here,” she says, and draws Michael, albeit reluctantly, into place beside her. She wraps her arms around Michael in a move that she knows Humans describe as spooning, and she cannot deny that it feels good.

They fall asleep almost simultaneously.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

On the Bridge of the _Shenzhou_ , Captain Philippa Georgiou comms the sickbay. “Georgiou to sickbay, the First Officer has been hurt.”

Doctor Nambue quickly appears and begins scanning Michael.

“Her pulse and blood pressure are normal, and I'm getting hyperactive fibrogenic activity. This is odd.”

“What is it?” asks the Captain, feeling a surge of concern at both his words and the tone of his voice.

“There's no evidence of any injury or trauma to Commander Burnham. Her vital signs are all completely normal, but her neurotransmitter production is off the scale. What's going on?”

“That probe out there –” Georgiou gestures at the viewscreen “– is doing something to her. Anything yet, Mister Connor, Mister Saru?”

“No, Captain,” answers Connor. “The particle emission is most unusual. I am unable to block it.”

“We should destroy the probe,” Saru says, his tone insistent. “Phasers are armed and ready.”

“I don't think that's wise,” Nambue interjects from his spot on the floor. He’s still kneeling beside their prone First Officer. “Not until we know exactly what it's doing to her.”

“Agreed. Stand down phasers, Mister Saru. In the meantime, take us out of range, Detmer. Thrusters only, one hundred kph. Nice and easy”

“Aye, Captain,” answers Detmer immediately, engaging the thrusters and moving the ship away.

“Mister Connor?” queries the Captain after a few minutes, her eyes still trained on Nambue’s continuing scans of Michael Burnham.

“The probe is moving with us, holding relative position.”

“I think it’s connected itself to her, like a tether,” says Nambue.

_Oh Michael, my love, what has it done to you? What is it doing?_ Georgiou abruptly finds herself regretting the fact that she has never spoken to Michael about her feelings for her. She’s been keeping it to herself in part because she’s the Captain and Michael is in her chain of command, but also because she isn’t entirely sure Michael feels the same way about her. She knows the Commander cares about her and is very fond of her, but that doesn’t equate to wanting a deeper, more intimate relationship with her. To tell the truth, she’s come close to making a declaration of her feelings on four separate occasions during the past two years, but each time she’s held back, worried that Michael will turn her down, and not wanting to ruin the very precious friendship she has built with the young woman over the years since she joined the _Shenzhou_. 

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

When Michael wakes on that first morning on Kataan, she discovers that she and Eline have switched positions during the night, and her body is wrapped around the other woman’s. Her left hand is curved over Eline’s mound and her right hand is cupping her breast. And she can feel that she is aroused enough that her sex is hot and slick. Part of her thinks she should be ashamed because this isn’t Philippa Georgiou, with whom she has been in love for over four years, but another part of her is thinking _This is my wife, why shouldn’t I be aroused?_

Eline stirs in her arms and Michael very deliberately doesn’t move her hands, or her body. She hears a soft chuckle, then Eline turns her head towards Michael’s. “Someone woke up frisky,” she says in a teasing tone that makes Michael’s heart ache, because she sounds so much like Philippa.

“Is that a problem?” she asks.

“Not at all,” Eline says. “I’d say it’s a good sign you’re over the fever.”

“Mmhmm,” Michael says, nosing at the nape of Eline’s neck. She presses a kiss there a little wonderingly as she feels Eline’s shiver of pleasure. She idly brushes the pad of her thumb against the other woman’s breast, teasing the nipple to a stiff peak, and her wife makes a little mewling noise in the back of her throat, so Michael continues her ministrations.

She presses her mouth to the side of Eline’s neck, working on giving her a lovebite while she teases both of the other woman’s breasts, alternating between the two.

“ _Kamin, please,_ ” her wife gasps out.

It’s Michael’s turn to chuckle this time, and she smiles against Eline’s skin as she lifts her wife’s left leg up and back, opening up access to her sex. Michael slides her middle finger through the other woman’s slick folds, and feels her own sex growing hotter and wetter as she begins to work Eline up towards a climax. It’s strange, but also exciting, to hear the moans and soft cries that her wife makes as she gets closer and closer to orgasm, and as she adds a second finger, Michael can’t help wondering if this is how her Captain would sound were she ever to have the privilege of making love to her.

Eline comes hard, her inner muscles clenching tightly around Michael’s fingers, and she feels as if it would take very little effort to make herself climax. She strokes Eline through the aftershocks of her orgasm, nuzzling softly at her neck, before she withdraws her fingers. 

“Kamin.” Her wife’s voice is hoarse, and Michael finds that arousing too. 

“Yes, love?”

“Will you let me –”

“Oh! Yes, please.” Michael hopes she doesn’t sound too eager, but she wants this intimacy. 

Eline eases herself away from Michael, then rolls to face her. “Shall I take you in the usual way, or have you come up with something new for us to try?”

“The usual way,” Michael says, trusting that this woman who has Philippa’s face won’t actually hurt her.

“Lie on your back, then, my love.” Michael allows herself to roll onto her back, then Eline moves her body over hers, her sex pressing against Michael’s left thigh, and her left hand pinning Michael’s wrists above her head. She leans down and kisses Michael greedily, and as they kiss, Eline slides two fingers into her slick heat. Michael groans as her inner walls tighten around her wife’s fingers.

“Please, love,” she gasps. “More.”

Eline chuckles, the familiar throaty sound making Michael want even more. Eline begins to rock against Michael’s thigh while her fingers plunge in and out of her sex. Michael feels herself growing closer to a climax, but Eline teasingly keeps her on the verge without pushing her over the edge for what feels like hours, but probably isn’t. Then she bites down on Michael’s bottom lip, and Michael gasps as she clenches tightly around Eline’s fingers, her orgasm leaving her sex spasming.

As the endorphins from her orgasm swirl around her Michael thinks, for one treacherous moment, that maybe being stuck here wouldn’t be so bad. But then she thinks, _Eline is not Philippa, not matter how much they look and sound alike. Will you really give up the woman you love, whose friendship and leadership you prize so highly, for the sake of fucking a woman you don’t know, simply because she looks like the love of your life?_ Of course the answer to that is a resounding no.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

Eline comes out of the house into the courtyard where Michael’s peering into the telescope she built nearly five years ago.

“You've been dreaming of that starship of yours again, haven't you?” she asks, her tone slightly sardonic. 

“I'm just charting progress of the course of the sun,” Michael says. “It might give a clue to the cause of this drought.”

“Do you know what I think?” Eline asks. “I think you're still trying to figure out where you are. Where that ship of yours is. How to get back to that life.”

Michael sighs, her finger marking her page in her journal. “The memory is five years old now, but it's still inside me.”

“Was your life there so much better than this?” Eline asks insistently. “So much more gratifying, so much more fulfilling, that you cling to it with such stubbornness?”

“Eline.” 

“It must have been extraordinary,” her wife observes. “But never in all of the stories you've told me have you mentioned anyone who loved you as I do.”

“It was real,” Michael says. “It was as real as this is. And you can't expect me to forget a lifetime spent there.”

“Yes, I can. I've been patient, Kamin. For five years I've shared you with that other life. I've listened, I've tried to understand, and I have waited. When do I get you back?”

“I know,” Michael says, feeling the usual guilt. “I know it has been hard on you.”

“When will you let go? When will you start living this life? When will we start a family?”

Before Michael can respond, her friend Batai appears. “Kamin, Eline, good morning.”

“Good morning, Batai.” Michael slides her finger from the inside of her journal.

“Are you ready?” Batai asks. “The Administrator's already arrived.”

“Yes. Will you come along?” Michael asks her wife.

“No, thank you. You’ll do very well on your own.” 

Michael nods, then walks away at Batai’s side.

“She always was strong-minded, even when she was a child.”

“It's not her fault,” Michael says. “These past few years have been very difficult for her.”

“And for you, I think,” Batai suggests, her tone sympathetic.

Michael doesn’t answer, knowing that the difficulty lies with herself because no matter how much she’s adjusted to life here over the last five years, she still recalls her life aboard the _Shenzhou_ , and she misses Philippa every day, so much that sometimes she can hardly look at Eline and on those days she cannot bear to touch her wife. When the longing and loneliness come over her, Michael doesn’t go to bed. Instead she goes to her laboratory and works on her experiments. Or she spends the night gazing at the stars. And sometimes she walks up into the hills to roam alone, unhappy and uncomforted.

They arrive in the town square. 

“There you are, Batai,” says a man whom Michael presumes is the Administrator. “Perhaps you can explain to me how it is when crops are dying all over, this tree is flourishing?” 

“This tree is our symbol, our affirmation of life,” Batai answers. “Everyone in this town gives part of their water rations to keep it alive. We've learned, Administrator, that hope is a powerful weapon against anything. Even drought.”

Michael recalls that the tree was being planted the very day that she arrived on Kataan.

“A good point,” the Administrator says. “Perhaps I shall recommend a symbolic tree in each of my communities. Now. What business do we have today?”

“We need help if we're to increase the water supply. We think there are ways to reclaim some of our water,” Batai explains.

“Batai, you're being a bit of an alarmist. True, we are in a drought, but water rationing has produced a sizeable saving.”

“If the weather pattern doesn't change, rationing will not be enough,” Michael says simply. “We'll run out of water.”

“Who is this?” asks the Administrator.

“Kamin, sir.”

“Kamin. Do I know you?” asks the Administrator.

“No,” Michael says. “I haven't spoken to you before.”

“Well, Kamin, I'm open to all the people of this town. I'm delighted to hear what you have to say.” The Administrator raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“I suggest that we build atmospheric condensers which could extract water from the air,” she says.

“I don't mean to quash your very creative ideas but building atmospheric condensers would be a monumental undertaking. We could not hope to sustain such a project.” The Administrator’s tone is dismissive, but Michael’s not ready to give up just yet.

“Each community would be responsible for their own,” she explains. “Condensers could make the difference between watering our crops or watching them die.”

“Well, I'll be glad to pass along your idea. You'll see that this kind of participatory government works for everyone. Be well, Batai. I shall see you next month. Good to meet you, Kamin.”

“Go carefully, Administrator,” Batai says.

The Administrator leaves and Batai turns back to Michael. “That went very well. I think he was impressed with you.”

“But there will be no atmospheric condensers,” she says heavily.

“These things take time, but it will happen. I'm sure of it.”

Michael shakes her head. “Come and have supper tonight, my friend. I'll make some vegetable stew, and we’ll talk about building our own condenser.” 

“Kamin, hearing you talk to the Administrator, I realised that for the first time in years, you were speaking as though you were truly a member of the community. It was good to hear that again.”

Michael hardly knows how to respond to that. She doesn’t feel a member of this community, though she’s worked very hard to fit in. She does care about many of the townspeople, however and, perhaps more importantly, as a xenoanthropologist, she can’t bear to see these people die through a lack of practical assistance.

That evening she and Batai sit in the courtyard, Michael playing _Frère Jacques_ on her penny whistle.

“You've been brooding behind that flute all evening,” Batai observes after a lengthy silence.

“I'm not brooding,” Michael says quickly. “I'm immersed in my music.”

“Music,” Batai repeats, her tone a mixture of humour and doubt.

“I find that it helps me think, but the real surprise is I enjoy it so much.”

“No,” says Batai, “the real surprise is that you may actually be improving.”

Eline comes out of the house and looks down at Batai where she sits on a bench against the wall of the house. “Batai?”

“Yes Eline?”

“Go home.”

She chuckles softly and hands over her empty glass. “Yes, Eline. Goodnight, Kamin.”

“Goodnight, my friend.”

“Go carefully, Batai,” Eline tells her as she leaves.

“Don't forget these,” Eline says to Michael as she picks up her shoes. “I won't put them away for you again.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I've done nothing but nag all day,” she says. “I'm sorry.”

“No,” Michael says. “I'm the one who's sorry. Everything you said this morning was absolutely correct. I feel that I have given you so little and you have given me so much.”

“No,” Eline says immediately, sliding her arms around Michael’s neck as Michael wraps her arms around her torso. “You're a good woman. A wonderful wife. I didn't mean –”

“No, not such a wonderful wife,” Michael contradicts her. “I spend my spare time charting the stars. I disappear for days at a time exploring the countryside. My life is very much as it was. Old habits.”

“You're gentle and kind. You’ve never once raised your voice to me.”

Michael shakes her head. “I'd like to ask your permission to build something.”

“Kamin, you've built your telescope, your laboratory. You don't need my permission for something new.”

“In this case, I think I do.”

“What is it?” Eline asks, and Michael can see her curiosity.

“A nursery,” she says.

“Really?” Eline looks utterly astounded, clapping her hands to her mouth, before repeating, “Really?” 

“Unless, of course, you would prefer a porch,” Michael suggests humorously. “It would certainly be easier to build. I could make a start on it right away.”

“No. Thank you.” Eline kisses her deeply and Michael kisses her back. Then they head inside to discuss finding a donor to impregnate Eline. Things get a little heated when she tells Michael that she wants her to watch while their chosen donor tries to impregnate her. She can’t say that she’s ever considered voyeurism to be something that interests her, but Eline’s excitement at the prospect sparks something in Michael. They end up having sex on the couch because Eline is so excited by the idea.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

“Mr Connor, any progress identifying the probe?” asks Georgiou, who is still standing over her First Officer. She’d prefer to be kneeling beside Michael, cradling the younger woman’s head in her lap, even, but she knows that would be setting a bad example to the rest of the Bridge crew, so she remains on her feet.

“Maybe, Captain,” Connor says. “I've picked up some residue on the probe's shell. I think it came from the propulsion system. Looks like it used a solid propellant as fuel.”

“Solid propellant?” repeats the Captain, surprised.

“Sensors read this stuff as crystalline emiristol. It produces a radioactive trail that ought to be traceable.”

“Then we should be able to send out a probe of our own, trace it back to the origin,” Georgiou observes, raising her eyebrows at the young ops officer.

“I'll get right on it,” he assures her.

“Captain, I have been analysing the nucleonic beam,” says Saru. “I believe it would be possible to reflect the particles back toward the probe in a way that would disrupt the signal.”

“Doctor?” asks Georgiou.

“I simply don't know the risk of shutting down the beam,” Doctor Nambue responds worriedly.

“I'm not willing to let this thing keep drilling into her,” Georgiou says.

“If somebody gets stabbed, you don't necessarily pull the knife out right away. It might do more harm than leaving it there,” Nambue points out.

“The First Officer is under attack,” Saru interjects. “Surely we must act.”

“I'm inclined to agree,” the Captain says. “Doctor Nambue, monitor her closely. Mister Saru, prepare to disrupt the beam. We're going to try to cut this cord.”

“Aye, Captain.”

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

As Michael plays her flute, a piece of her own composition, Eline, with their second child in her arms, steps back a little and calls softly, “Meribor”, and their young daughter runs in from the courtyard.

“Meribor, this is your brother's ceremony. Don't fidget now,” Eline chides.

Michael finishes playing her piece. “We name this child for a dear friend who died a year ago. But now his memory will live on in his namesake.”

“We name you Batai, in her honour,” Eline says.

“And he's starting out in the warmth of friends,” Michael observes with a smile. “Thank you. Please, help yourselves to something to eat.”

“Congratulations, Kamin,” says one of their neighbours.

“Thank you.”

“It seems like only yesterday we had Meribor's naming ceremony,” Eline observes. Then she speaks to their daughter, “Go on.” The little girl runs off to play with a neighbour’s child.

“I remember,” Michael says, huffing a laugh. “I was so nervous I was afraid that I would drop her. Now look at the little lady.”

“She's no lady,” replies Eline with a smile. “Tromping through the hills with you all day, digging up those soil samples you insist upon collecting. No, she's her other mother's daughter.”

“I wouldn’t have believed that I needed children to complete my life,” Michael says softly. “Now I couldn't imagine life without them.” Then she makes a choking noise, clutching at her chest.

“Kamin, what is it?”

Michael can’t answer her wife. She cannot speak at all, and she collapses to the floor. The last thing she hears before unconsciousness claims her is Eline’s anxious voice.

“Get the doctor. Hurry!”

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

“Her respiratory system's in spasm,” Doctor Nambue says a little frantically. “Pulse is irregular and weakening. I'm losing her!”

“I'm getting massive somatophysical failure,” his nurse says. 

“Two cc's delactovine,” Nambue tells her.

“Mr Saru get that beam back!” snaps the Captain.

“There are severe fluctuations in the isocortex. Synaptic responses are failing,” the nurse says.

“Begin full cardiac induction,” orders Nambue.

“Blood pressure is dropping rapidly. Seventy over twenty,” reports the nurse.

“Captain, you've got to re-establish that beam,” Nambue snaps.

“We are attempting to do so, Doctor,” Georgiou says.

“Losing response in the isocortex.”

“Cortical stimulators,” Nambue orders. “Start at ten percent.”

“The beam is fully restored, Doctor,” reports Saru.

“Blood pressure up to ninety over forty and rising.”

“Isocortical functions are stabilising. Vital signs are approaching normal.” Nambue wipes his brow, then gets to his feet and practically glares at the Captain. “Let’s not do that again,” he says. “Not unless you want to lose Commander Burnham.”

Some Captains would discipline the Doctor for his insubordinate tone, but Captain Georgiou does not – she knows very well that he has this crew’s health and best interests at heart, and also that he is very fond of Michael.

“Noted, Doctor,” she says dryly, and he flushes, then nods, and resumes his place kneeling at Michael’s side.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

Michael enters the courtyard in front of the house she and Eline share to find their daughter, now a fine young woman, digging in the soil.

“Meribor?” 

“Happy day, mother.”

“Hey, that's my hobby,” Michael teases as the young woman dusts soil off her hands. “Find your own.”

“You're the one who taught me,” Meribor says humorously. “Don't complain if you've turned me into a scientist.”

Michael chuckles. “And what has the scientist been up to today?”

“Analysing soil samples. There isn't any anaerobic bacteria. The soil is dead. This isn't just a very long drought, is it, Mother? I have entries in my log that go back ten years. You have data preceding that for fifteen years. You've reached the same conclusion, I know you have.”

“I haven't reached any conclusion. A good scientist doesn't function by conjecture,” Michael reminds her.

“A good scientist functions by hypothesising, and then proving or disproving that hypothesis,” Meribor agrees, repeating what Michael taught her when she was a child. “That's what I did.” 

“Another question for you. Why don't you spend more time with that young woman Dannick?” 

“You are changing the subject,” Meribor says, raising one eyebrow at her.

“No, I'm not. I'm just hypothesising that she's in love with you.”

Meribor shakes her head. “You've taught me to pursue the truth, no matter how painful it is. It's too late to back off now. This planet is dying.”

Michael sighs heavily. “Perhaps I should have filled your head with trivial concerns. Games and toys and clothes.”

“I don't think you mean that.”

“No, I don't. It just saddens me to see you burdened with the knowledge of things you can't change.” Michael’s heart aches for her children, knowing that they will not have the chance to grow old because this planet will have become too hot to be habitable to humans before too many more years have passed.

“Mother, I think I should marry Dannick sooner rather than later, don't you?”

“Seize the time, Meribor,” Michael agrees. “Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.”

Meribor gets to her feet. “I love you, Mother,” she says softly, and winds her arms about Michael’s neck. 

“And I love you, too, my daughter.” Michael embraces her in return and wishes there was more she could do for this planet. She presses her palm to the back of Meribor’s head, and calls on her Vulcan training, willing herself not to get too emotional for her daughter’s sake.

They head indoors for breakfast, and as they settle down around the table along with Eline and their son, Batai, Michael can’t help thinking that despite the dire planetary situation, she has been largely happy here with her wife and two children. She still misses Philippa (for all that Eline looks like her Captain) and the _Shenzhou_ , and she thinks she always will, but her life here has been good.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

“The Commander’s vital signs are holding,” Doctor Nambue tells the Captain. “They've been stable ever since the beam was restored.”

“Captain, we've started to receive telemetry from the probe we launched,” Connor says.

“Go ahead.”

“We've charted the alien probe's radiation trail for over one light year,” Connor tells her.

“Any way to extrapolate an origin?”

“It looks like a star system in the Silarian sector, Captain. Kataan.”

“Never heard of it,” Georgiou says. “Saru?”

“It is an unmapped system of six planets, Captain.” 

“Any of them inhabited?” she asks.

“Not any longer, Captain,” Saru reports. “The star went nova. All life in the system was destroyed approximately one thousand years ago.”

“One thousand –” begins the Captain, turning towards Saru, startled, and he nods. “That’s incredible.” She stares down at Michael, wondering just what’s going on with her Number One and this thousand-year-old probe.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

Michael is peering into her refractor telescope as a now grey-haired, distinguished-looking Eline enters the courtyard in front of their home. 

“I put away your shoes for you again,” she says.

“Yes, thank you, dear,” Michael responds absently, her attention still on the sky above where dusk is turning into true darkness.

“You know, I've been looking through this thing off and on for over thirty years, and I still don't see what you and Meribor find so fascinating.”

“Then maybe you'll sit down and have a rest like you're supposed to?” Michael asks, pulling back from the telescope’s eyepiece to cast a concerned look at her wife. It has pained her, in some ways, to see this woman who looks so much like her Captain becoming frailer as the years have passed.

“You treat me like some fragile flower. People have surgery all the time,” Eline complains.

In the distance flute music starts up.

“He loves playing. He's quite good at it, don't you think?” Eline asks.

“He loves doing a lot of things, too many. Last week, all he wanted to do was be a botanist. The week before that, a sculptor. I wish he could find some focus in his life.”

“I think he has. Maybe you should talk to him.” Eline raises her eyebrows, and Michael sighs softly, then calls, 

“Batai?”

The door of their home opens and a handsome young man stands in the doorway, flute in hand. 

“Mother?”

“I get the feeling from your other mother that you have something to tell me,” Michael says.

“Yes. I was waiting for the right moment, but that will never come. I'm leaving school,” Batai Junior says.

“Leaving school?” Michael repeats. “No, you're not.”

“I want to concentrate on my music. That's what I care about.”

“Last year, all you cared about was mathematics. The year before that, botany,” Michael points out. “Now –” 

“But through it all, there was my music,” Batai says. He has inherited Michael’s stubbornness, she knows. “I think you know that, Mother. This is the life I want.”

“Well, we'll discuss it,” Michael says after a few moments of staring at the son to whom she gave birth so many years ago. 

“Thank you, Mother.” Batai goes back indoors.

“Even after all these years you still have the ability to surprise me,” Eline says softly.

Michael snorts. “If music is what he wants, why should I stand in his way? Anyway,” she adds heavily, “who knows how much time he'll have to follow any dream.” 

“Are you still planning to talk to the Administrator tomorrow?”

“There's a possibility he'll dismiss me from the Council,” Michael warns.

“Unless, of course, you keep quiet.” Eline smirks at that, as if she knows just how unlikely that is.

“No. The evidence is too pronounced. I can't stay silent.”

“What a surprise,” Eline says in a dry tone.

The next day Michael and the Administrator talk in the town square.

“Kamin, what do you hope to accomplish?” asks the Administrator testily. “Spreading rumours that the planet is doomed. There could be chaos.”

“The facts are here. At least show them to someone who will recognise what they mean,” Michael says, a little desperately.

“I won't be a party to your making trouble.” The Administrator’s tone is uncompromising.

“If you won't take them, I most certainly will,” she warns.

“Your observations, your findings, our scientists reached those same conclusions two years ago.” When Michael gives him a surprised look he demands, “Well, what did you expect us to do? Make it public? Can you imagine the effect?” 

“But surely the technology must exist to save something of this world?” she asks, thinking of her son, her daughter, and her grandson. “Perhaps some people could be evacuated.”

“Evacuated where?” asks the Administrator, exasperated. “Our technology is limited. We're only just beginning to launch small missiles.”

“A collection of genetic samples, then,” Michael suggests. “Something, anything. You simply cannot let this civilisation die.”

“Enough! There is a plan in progress. I cannot tell you more than that.”

Before Michael can press him further Batai Junior arrives in haste. “Mother!”

“What is it?” she asks, surprised.

“It's my other Mother. Hurry.”

Michael rushes after him, glad that she’s maintained her fitness all these years as he leads the way at speed back towards home.

In the sitting room of their home she sees the Doctor.

“Doctor?”

“Kamin. I'm sorry,” she says gently. 

“You see?” Eline says humorously. “I go to any lengths to get your attention.”

Michael feels a pang of heartache. “You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” she agrees. 

“Doctor, thank you,” Eline says, and the Doctor leaves. To their son she adds, “Batai, leave us alone for a moment. I need to talk to my wife.”

“Of course, mother.” Batai leaves too.

“Did you show the Administrator your evidence?” Eline asks, and Michael kneels down beside her.

“I didn't have to. They already knew.”

“So, he won't throw you off the Council?”

“No,” Michael says softly.

Eline nods. “Good. Remember, put your shoes away.”

“I promise,” Michael says, feeling her breath hitch and her heart rate speeding up as she sees the light drain out of her wife’s eyes. Eline dies, and Michael feels as if a part of her has died too. She starts sobbing quietly, her head against Eline’s stomach and her arms wrapped around her wife’s body. She thinks of Captain Philippa Georgiou, whom she loves so dearly, and wishes she could have seen her one more time, to tell her how she felt.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

A year later, Michael herself is looking like an old woman with her white hair, but she’s still supple enough to be crawling across the sitting room floor with her young grandson.

“Gotcha! Now I gotcha!” she exclaims as she clasps him around the middle and tickles, making him squeal.

“Some children are certainly making a lot of noise in here,” says Meribor as she comes inside.

“You shouldn't be outside so long,” Michael chides. “It's damaging, you know that.”

“I'm wearing plenty of your skin protection,” Meribor says.

“How about you, young man? Do you wear your skin protection outdoors?” The boy nods. “You do? Good boy.”

Batai Junior, enters the house. “Happy day, everybody. It's time to go see the launching.”

“What launching?” asks Michael. “What's he talking about?”

“They're sending up a missile, Mother,” Meribor says. “We're going to watch it.”

“I'm not going anywhere to watch anything,” Michael says haughtily. 

“Come on, Kamie. Hurry up now. Let's go see the launching.” Batai Junior puts a hat on his nephew before he leads him outside.

“It breaks my heart to look at him,” Michael says quietly.

“Who?” asks Meribor.

“My grandson. It breaks my heart. He deserves a rich, full life, and he's not going to get one.”

“Please come, Mother,” Meribor urges.

“Why didn't I hear anything about any launching?” asks Michael, feeling cranky.

When they reach the town square everyone is wearing broad brimmed sunhats and loose clothing.

“Did everyone know about this except me?” Michael demands, then gestures Meribor away. “I'll be all right sitting here. You go off with the others. Hold onto my grandson, and watch the damned thing go up for all the good it'll do. What is it they're launching?”

“You know about it, Mother,” Meribor says. “You've already seen it.”

“Seen it? What are you talking about? I haven't seen any missile,” Michael says insistently.

“Yes, you have, old friend,” says a familiar, long-dead voice. “Don't you remember?”

“Batai?” Michael says, shaken to her core at the sight of her face smiling at her. She looks exactly as she had when Michael first met her – a healthy, middle-aged woman. 

“You saw it just before you came here,” Batai says. “We hoped our probe would encounter someone in the future. Someone who could be a teacher. Someone who could tell others about us.”

“Oh, it's me, isn't it?” Michael says, startled. “I'm the someone. I'm the one it finds. That's what this launching is. A probe that finds me in the future.”

“Yes, my love,” says a soft voice.

“Eline.” Michael turns her head and drinks in the sight of the woman who looks like Philippa Georgiou, looking as young and attractive as when she had first met her here.

“The rest of us have been gone for a thousand years. If you remember what we were, and how we lived, then we'll have found life again,” Eline tells her.

“Eline,” Michael says helplessly as a rocket soars into the cloudless blue sky.

“Now we live in you. Tell them of us, my darling,” Eline asks, her voice gentle and fond.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

On the Bridge of the _Shenzhou_ Doctor Nambue suddenly exclaims, “Something's happening.”

“The nucleonic beam has ceased, Captain,” Connor says. “The probe has shut down.”

“Her cerebral functions are stabilising,” the Doctor tells them.

“Mister Saru, put a tractor beam on that probe. I want it in shuttlebay two for examination,” the Captain says, her eyes never leaving the prone form of her First Officer, the woman she feared she’d lost.

“Yes, Captain,” Saru answers immediately. 

“What?” asks Michael shakily from the floor.

“Please, Commander, don't get up too quickly,” says Nambue, a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“Commander?” Michael repeats. “This is the _USS Shenzhou_. I'm Michael Burnham.” She looks up at the Captain. “How long?”

“Twenty, twenty five minutes,” answers Georgiou.

“Twenty five minutes?” Michael repeats, sounding dazed.

“Commander, I want you in Sickbay. I'd like to run a full diagnostic on you.”

“Yes, Doctor Nambue,” Michael agrees without hesitation.

She pauses at the doors to the turbolift to take a look around and catches the Captain’s eye. After a moment Georgiou gives her a subtle nod, indicating that she will come and see Michael once she’s out of Nambue’s clutches.

MB-PG-MB-PG-MB

Michael is sitting on her bed in her quarters, gazing around half disbelievingly, when the door chimes, and she has to think for a moment to work out what that sound indicates.

“Come.”

Captain Georgiou enters. “Hello Commander. Feeling better?” 

“Yes, thank you. But I find I'm having to rediscover that this is really my home.” She is still feeling bewildered by everything that’s happened, not least the fact that the equivalent of most of her lifetime had passed in a mere twenty five minutes.

“We were able to open the probe and examine it,” the Captain tells her. “Apparently, whatever had locked onto you must have been self terminating. It's not functioning any longer. We found this inside.”

She hands Michael a box, then gestures at the chair beside her desk. She nods and the Captain sits down. After a moment Michael opens the box and finds inside a penny whistle with a tassel. She feels a lump of emotion tightening her throat and making her eyes prickle as she clutches it to her chest, then she lifts the instrument to her lips and plays her variation of the _Skye Boat_ song, the original of which Amanda had taught her as a child. Philippa Georgiou sits silently, listening intently, and Michael knows that shortly she will give her Captain a full and complete account of what she experienced, but for now she’s going to ease her mind and soul with familiar music. Then she will make her confession and await Philippa’s judgement. 

Once she’s finished playing, the Captain smiles and says, “That was quite beautiful, Number One. I didn’t know you played.” 

“I didn’t, before today.”

Philippa looks startled, then intrigued. “You learned while you were attached to the probe?”

“Attached?” Michael repeats. “Yes, I suppose that’s a very apt description.” She sighs. “I would prefer not to put some of what I’m about to tell you into my report of today’s events. I trust you’ll understand why afterwards.”

The Captain nods. “Very well. Go ahead, Commander.”

Michael takes a centring breath in through her nose, then exhales it, before she describes her experiences of Kataan.

Philippa listens attentively, as Michael expected she would, and the young woman doesn’t miss the way her eyes widen when she describes how ‘Eline’ looked like her Captain, nor the flush of colour that appears high across her cheeks when Michael tells her that she had a sexual relationship with Eline, and of the children they each bore. 

Finally, Michael explains attending the launch of the very probe that had precipitated the events of the day.

“You could have left out the information that Eline looked like me,” Philippa says very softly at the end of Michael’s recitation.

“Yes,” she agreed. She had, in fact, considered it while she was in sickbay being checked over by Doctor Nambue. “But that wouldn't have been true to her, or the life we shared together. It wouldn't have been true to the Kataanians' project, either.” 

“True.” The Captain gazes at her for a long moment, then says, “On at least four occasions in the past two years I have come very close to telling you how I feel about you.”

Michael frowns at her, then realises what Philippa is saying. “You mean –?”

“I mean that I am incredibly jealous of a woman who's been dead for over a thousand years, because she got to live the kind of life that I would like to live with you.” 

Michael swallows, feeling tears prick at her eyes, then she gives her Captain a shaky smile. “It's not too late, is it Philippa?”

“No, Michael, I don't believe it is.” She gets up from her chair and Michael quickly stands up too, then they step towards each other and cling together for a few moments before Philippa's mouth finds Michael's. 

The kiss is awkward for only a little while until they get the angles right, and then it becomes exquisite – even better than any Michael shared with Eline, because Philippa is here in the flesh, and her mouth is hot and hungry on Michael's.

Eventually the need to breathe becomes paramount and they pull apart just far enough to rest their foreheads together, their breath mingling between them.

“Philippa?” Michael whispers. 

“Yes, my love?”

“May I touch you?”

“Yes please. And I should like to touch you, too.”

“Yes,” Michael says on a low note. Then, “Computer, privacy protocol.”

The computer chirps compliance, then Michael slowly, reverently even, unzips Philippa's uniform jacket and slips her hands inside, drawing them up Philippa's sides before bringing them to cup her breasts through her tee. She hears Philippa's sharp exhale when she rubs the pads of her thumbs over her rapidly stiffening nipples. And feels a thrill of excitement go through her at the knowledge that this is Captain Philippa Georgiou she is touching so intimately. 

“My turn,” Philippa says in a low voice, and Michael lets her hands drop to her sides so that Philippa can unzip her jacket. Her hands go straight to Michael's breasts, and the Commander moans softly as her Captain fondles her breasts, teasing her nipples to taut peaks before pinching them lightly.

From there it’s only a short step to having her Captain undress her completely, then Michael finds herself laid out on her bed with Philippa stripping off under her heated gaze.

“I want to make love to you the same way Eline did. Will you tell me how?” Philippa asks, and Michael feels a flush of heat sweep through her body.

“Yes. She positioned herself with her body over mine, and her sex pressing against my left thigh, while her left hand pinned my wrists above my head.”

Michael sees something hot flare in Philippa’s gaze at her words before she asks softly, “Then what?”

“We kissed and she slid two fingers into me, eventually beginning to rock against my thigh as she penetrated me repeatedly. When she was ready to make me climax she would bite my bottom lip.”

“And are you okay with me doing all these things to you?”

“Please, Philippa,” Michael says, not bothering to hide her eagerness.

Her Captain, now her lover, positions them both as Michael described and grips her wrists. 

“Is that comfortable, love?” she asks, and Michael can't help smiling at the care Philippa shows her even in this. 

“Yes Philippa.” 

Her Captain leans down to kiss her before stroking two fingers down the outer lips of her sex. Michael makes an eager noise in the back of her throat, and Philippa smiles against her mouth, deepening their kiss as she slides her fingers into Michael's slick heat.

“So wet and ready for me, my love,” Philippa murmurs as she begins to thrust. 

“Yes,” Michael gasps, desperate and needy. She groans when Philippa begins to rock her hips, pressing her own sex firmly against Michael's thigh. She longs to hold her Captain's body against her own, and then she realises that there's nothing to stop her from doing so: they don't have to do things as she and Eline did them because she and Philippa are different people with different experiences. 

She slips her wrists free of Philippa's grasp, eliciting an enquiring noise, but when she wraps her hands over her Captain's hips, Philippa seems to intensify her actions, kissing Michael more hungrily, rocking harder against her thigh, and thrusting deeper and harder into her sex.

Michael groans into her mouth, then relinquishes her grasp on Philippa's left hip in order to bring her hand between their bodies, finding her clit and massaging it vigorously. 

Philippa tears her mouth from Michael's with a startled noise, followed by “Fuck!” uttered in a low voice. Michael feels her orgasm starting and works her fingers faster against Philippa's clit.

“Come with me, please,” she begs, and her Captain utters a string of Malay as her thigh muscles tighten around Michael's leg. 

Michael's own orgasm feels as if it's blown her to atoms. She utters a very loud cry of pleasure and her vision whites out for a moment, then she lies beneath Philippa, panting and gasping for breath in pure astonishment at the force of her climax. She never came so hard when Eline was inside her. 

“Are you okay, my love?” Philippa asks in a tender tone, brushing the sweaty strands of hair from Michael's brow.

“Yes,” Michael says softly. “That was incredible, thank you.” 

Philippa brushes her lips lightly over Michael's. “You are most welcome. And my thanks to you, too, for your intervention. Coming with you was particularly glorious.” 

She shifts to lie beside Michael, who asks in a soft voice, “May I cuddle you?”

“Definitely,” her Captain says, and Michael sighs happily as they snuggle up together. 

Philippa presses butterfly kisses to Michael's face and the young woman thinks she's never been happier. 

“Philippa,” she says after a time of companionable silence. 

“Mmm?”

“Is this a one-off?”

“No,” her Captain says quickly. “Not unless you want –” 

“I want you,” Michael says immediately. “I want to spend time with you, to cuddle with you, and to have passionate sex with you as often as you'll let me.” 

“Good,” Philippa says in a satisfied tone. “Because I want those things, too.”

“Good.” Michael tucks her head into the crook of Philippa's neck and says softly, “I have never been happier, Philippa. Thank you.” After a beat she adds, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” her Captain says immediately. “And yes, you have made me very happy. Thank you, Michael.” 

They kiss, soft and sweet at first, but the kiss heats up after only a short time, and Michael can't help letting her right hand drift down Philippa's side before she insinuates it between their bodies. 

“May I?” she whispers against Philippa's mouth, her fingers hovering tantalisingly close to her Captain's sex.

“Yes,” Philippa says quickly. “Yes please, Michael.” 

“Thank you,” Michael murmurs, and slips two fingers into Philippa's slick heat. 

She moves slowly at first, dragging out her thrusts and teasing Philippa's clit with her thumb, but when her Captain makes a needy noise in the back of her throat, Michael picks up the pace of her thrusts. 

“More, Michael, please,” Philippa begs, and Michael asks, “Another finger?”

“Yes,” Philippa gasps, sounding desperate and frantic, and Michael gladly adds a third finger on the next in-thrust. “Harder, love, please.” 

Michael thrusts harder, properly fucking her Captain, who groans, then tightens her muscles around Michael's fingers, stilling her thrusts as Philippa climaxes with a wail of pleasure. 

As her muscles begin to relax, Michael carefully strokes her through the aftershocks, lightly kissing her face as she eases her fingers free. She lifts them to her mouth, and Philippa groans when she sucks her fingers clean of her juices. 

She flops onto her back, then sighs. “I should go back to my quarters.”

Michael thinks she sounds reluctant and she rolls onto her side, pressing herself against Philippa’s side. “Do you have to?” She presses a kiss to the top of her shoulder. “I’d like to wake up with you tomorrow.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Positive,” Michael says firmly. “I’ve just had 70 years of waking up next to you – or your doppelganger, if you prefer – I’m not quite ready to give that up.” She nibbles at Philippa’s flesh. “Besides, wouldn’t you like to start the day with sex?”

Her Captain laughs, and Michael smirks at her, thinking this is the lightest she’s seen the other woman in a long time. “You make a very good case for remaining, Number One.”

“Thank you, Captain.” 

Philippa slips her arm around Michael, snugging her body in close. “Very well, then, Michael, I will stay the night, and gladly.”

“Good.” Michael leans over for a last kiss, smiling in satisfaction.

**Author's Note:**

> Teleplay by Morgan Gendel and Peter Allan Fields, and story by Morgan Gendel.


End file.
